Cab-Hailing Apps May Give NYC Users Unfair, Illegal Advantage

Anyone who has ever stood on a cold New York City street corner without a cab in sight has wished for some magic way to summon up a taxi with the push of a button. But now that a new smartphone app promises to make this dream a possibility, the Big Apple may also need to re-visit some of its strict pick-up policies.

See, this Uber app would locate a nearby cab for the user and effectively reserve that cab until the driver arrives at the pick-up spot. Sounds great, yes?

However, NYC’s Taxi & Limousine Commission rules strictly forbid cabs from making prearranged pick-ups. That is a task left to licensed town car services, which in turn are not supposed to pick up fares on the street.

While no final decision has been made, it would seem like the Uber app would violate these rules, essentially allowing participating cabs to operate as both taxis and town cars.

Taxis are also forbidden from refusing street pick-ups (though anyone who has needed to go far from Manhattan late at night is likely familiar with the cabbie who refuses to unlock the doors until you tell him your destination). Since Uber would lock the cab into a specific passenger, the driver would be obligated to not pick up passengers he passes en route.

The CEO of Uber pish-poshes the idea that his app is equivalent to having a town car service with a dispatcher who arranges pick-ups.

“Prearrangement means it’s basically on behalf of a base,” he explains. “We’re not working with a base.”

Perhaps not, but try telling that to the dozens of people that cab passes on its way to pick up an Uber user… or the user of any number of other apps trying to crack the NYC taxi market.

Some local lawmakers, especially those who represent less-affluent parts of the city, worry that such apps would create a two-tiered system, in which those with smartphones — and who are willing to pay whatever extra fees might be involved — get first dibs on cabs not by tried-and-true methods like upstreaming or flashing some leg (always works for me!), but simply by having nicer gadgets.

Instead of “reserving” the cab, simply have the app ping the cab company with your exact location. Sure, someone might steal your cab, but then have the app tell you that as well. You can continue doing this until you get a cab.

Yes, and a fascinating story it is. The number of taxi medallions has been fixed for a long time, resulting in a secondary market, with drivers paying on the order of $200,000 for one. Which in turn means that they can’t really issue more, because the drivers who have paid that for them would revolt. Talk about unintended consequences!

Couldn’t the city sell more – they get extra money, and consumers get more cabs – sure if they flood the market with hundreds of new medallions the price with drop; but I’m sure they could work out a correct number to sell each month/quarter/year that will not result in devestating the market.

The real problem is there isn’t any more room on the city’s streets for more cabs. If the issued more medallions, there would be that many more cabs on the road constantly. That extra traffic would slow everything down, so any advantage you had by having more cabs on the road gets lost by all the extra traffic.

I must be weird, as I actually don’t mind commercials in most instances. It gives a nice chance to go to the bathroom, grab a snack,discuss what happened in the show if watching with other people, etc…or just see what kind of crap marketers are trying to sell to us. I only hate when commercials are replayed a zillion times during a short program.

I’m not sure if people understand how Uber works… They don’t advertise themselves as taxis. They’re not bright yellow or green. They don’t have the taxi sign above their roof. There’s no fares/prices listed on the doors. They don’t go advertising they’re a taxi.

They’re generally unmarked black town cars (sometimes black SUVs). I doubt anyone would ever mistaken them as a taxi…

Is this service really that different than hiring a limousine service and telling the driver where you want to go? Do limousines have to pick up any random guy on the street if they’ve been reserved and on route to you?

This issue is popping up everywhere that Uber is operating. The rules don’t always make sense, but are in place to provide a level of comfort & control to the cab companies. You are going to see turf wars for quite a while over how Uber fits into the local laws.

I don’t have a smartphone but… is there some way to just send out a localized ‘ping’ or something? That way it’s sorta like you’re hailing the cab, only with your phone? You just tap out your location and it sends out a signal to taxi drivers in the area or on the block.

My Dad pounded it into my brain that “life isn’t always fair”. I find it better to shrug and move on when I am personally faced with an unfair situation. For example, I am short. Growing up all of my friends got to go on the good rides at the amusement park years before me. Should I have sued?

Of course if they really wanted to provide for good cab service for everybody the government parasites in New York could decide to drop the choke hold on cab licenses, but that would benefit everybody EXCEPT the cab company owners (who make donations), so I ain’t holding my breath.

Uhh, you’re wrong. The fact is quite a few cabs aren’t even used because there’s not enough money to be made driving them. In addition, there’s roughly 12,500 licensed yellow cabs in the city and they mainly work the airports and Manhattan. The outer areas are serviced mainly by gypsy cabs because there’s not enough work for the yellow cabs. If you think you’re correct, try seeing how much money you make after expenses for a 12 hour shift.

I drove a NYC taxi back when I was in college. The problem with this app is unless the cabbie knows what the ride is worth I doubt he’ll run to get the fare. He’s not going to pass up business if the fare is only $7 or so since that’s about the average ride now. Unless there’s some way to let the taxi driver know that the fare is decent enough for him to ride empty I don’t think this will ever get rolling. And my cab had radio dispatch back then. When the city said we couldn’t do that anymore was when those same dispatch services became the “town car” services that we have now.